Thanks for all the kind words everybody, It's always great to be able to share a bit of info that ends up increasing your happiness level and make sure your vape experience is as great as mine. Thanks for for helping me have fun at work!
Hey guys. Enjoying the hell out of my Alpha Globe with the default atomizer, but I've been reading up on Ti coils, and have some questions/concerns. I've been reading on e-cig gorums that getting Ti glowing is a bad idea, because the glow temp is pretty much around the temp TiO2 starts to be produced. It was stated that TiO2 poses a health risk when inhaled by humans, but I don't know much about it definitively. Also it was mentioned that a method to mitigate the production of this gas was to use Temperature Controlled battery (one that registers the ohm rating and material type to lower its wattage over a long pull.)
Question one: Should Ti coils (such as the ones used it the Alpha Globe) only be used on temperature controlled batteries? If so, are there any battery/temperature setting recommendations?
No, these coils are safe to use on ~3.7V power supplies. The e-cig world is making (mostly grade 5 and worse) Ti coils in the ~0.3 ohm range, and these coils probably can't be fired on a battery-voltage device; they have about half the resistance to electron flow as our Ti coils so they will heat up much faster. Our coils take quite a long application of power at battery voltage to heat to such a high temperature that anything negative would occur; which leads us to your next questions. If you have a temperature control device you could most certainly try out temp controlling these coils, start low and work your way up with power. Even in TC, I don't suggest venturing past 15 watts, we see great heating and vapor production even with low wattage settings. You can set the 'temperature' to where you'd like, 400-550 may be a good range (entirely device-dependent though! Different boxes handle temp control differently, so always start low and work your way up.)
Question two: Are Ti coils safe to glow? If they are glowing with recommended use settings am I possibly endangering my health long term?
They're safe to glow red and nothing bad will happen at this point except the vapor from the oil you're trying to enjoy is going to taste bad because you over heated it and destroyed the terpenes instead of heated the wire to a nice temperature that would result in a flavorful vape. A dull glow on Ti wire is what results in a nice temperature for flavorful oil vaporization.
All you have to do is use shorter pulses or less power to fix this problem and vaporize your oils tastefully. But if you choose to increase the power and vape hot, its up to you. Say you keep holding down the button after all the oils are vaped away and the wire turns from red hot to white hot, this leads us to our third question
Question three (related to two): Are there any test results that can confirm the lack of hazardous TiO2 off gassing when the coils are getting hot enough to glow?
Yes you could consult any metallurgist or visit a website to learn about the properties of titanium.
Grades 1-4 titanium are unalloyed and pure titanium does not off gas. Titanium oxide is a chemical reaction between titanium and oxygen that occurs on the surface of titanium, there is no gas or vapor released. Heat accelerates the formation of this oxide.
If one continues to apply power while red hot will lead the wire to become white hot, above 1,100°F at which point titanium dioxide will form on the outside surface of the wire. This is the same white coating you would see on a titanium nail that has been used a lot or over heated. It's not ideal and will weaken the wire just like over time it weakens a nail, so for the longest life of your Ti cartridges use reasonable power levels coupled with reasonable applications of power and you'll have no issues.